Northrop Grumman Corporation dedicated its Aircraft Integration Center of Excellence in St. Augustine, Florida, adding 400 jobs and $102 million in capital investment to the region.

The St. Augustine Aircraft Integration Center of Excellence will include 368,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space on company-owned property. The company chose Florida due to the state’s skilled workforce and close partnerships with industry, at the state and regional levels, the Governor’s Office said.

“Today’s dedication signifies our continued commitment to our service men and women, to our employees in St. Augustine and to the state of Florida,” said Tom Vice, Northrop Grumman Corporate Vice President/President, Aerospace Systems. “The talented workforce at this center of excellence, coupled with a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, will continue to benefit our customers, our company and the community here.”

In March 2013, Governor Rick Scott announced that Northrop Grumman was designating five centers of excellence across the country; two of them located in Florida. The two centers together – in St. Augustine and Melbourne – represent 1,400 new jobs and more than $170 million in capital investments.

In addition to the new center in St. Augustine, the company recently broke ground on a new 220,000 square-foot building at its Melbourne campus, adjacent to the Melbourne International Airport. The new building will accommodate program management and engineering teams, as well as integration laboratories, and is scheduled to be complete this summer.

Governor Scott said, “Florida provides the ideal location for a world-class aerospace company like Northrop Grumman, and we are thrilled that they have chosen to create jobs in Florida. Today’s announcement of 400 new jobs in St. Augustine combined with 1,000 announced jobs in Brevard County mean more and more Floridians will have the opportunity to get a job. We must continue to focus on creating an opportunity economy where every Floridian who wants a job can get one.”

The project would not have been possible without strong partnerships at the state and local levels, the Governor’s Office said. Partners that helped make the project a success include Enterprise Florida, St. Johns County, City of St. Augustine, CareerSource Florida and the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

As part of the project, CareerSource Florida has offered Northrop Grumman performance-based partial reimbursement grants for employee training through the Quick Response Training program. QRT grants are structured to be flexible and responsive to the training needs of new or expanding businesses.